The Prog Mind

I hold great ties to philosophy. After all it was, by far, my favourite subject in the academic world of higher learning.
My feelings towards the subject of music and lyrics definitely go hand in hand with me. Subject matter and dealing with life problems certainly have been easier to understand and to deal with because of music, for me that is :)

Anyway, I can list an example where philosophy has been strongly present within the music.
First of all. IQ's album SUBTERRENEA gives a very interesting outlook on life after death and spiritually. Certainly key philosophical topics were present in this album. For instance, topics like 'is the mind separate from the body and is their really such a thing as 'higher levels of conscienceness.' Anyway, these are topics that even Some of the great minds of our history as human beings have tried to tackle. The French philosopher, Rene Descartes wrote an 8 piece meditative argument called the cogito which battles the whole universal principal that the mind is separate from the body and certainly this ontological argument helped spawn one of the most infamous quotes 'I think...therefore I am.'

Long story short. When I listened to subterranea it conjured up a ton of philosophical quandaries for me and it even challenged me to think about the exsistence of god as well, so you can be sure I thought about the works of St. Augustine and Tomas Aquinas. Anyway, my point is that philosophy serves its purpose and is definitely connected to a lot of music, especially prog.

Dean wrote: Dayvenkirq wrote: Dean wrote: Philosophy is a waste of a mind, it is the single most useless invention mankind has ever created, and the nonsense that dribbles from the mouths of pop and rock lyricists are some of the worst example of that. Prog lyrics are often poor poetry and even poorer philosophy even when compared to the inane banality of Hit Me baby One More Time. Why should I think that the probably drunken and possibly drug-addled musings of a singer in a rock band should carry any meaningful message or insight into the human condition. If the words tell a story then great, if they attempt to impart wisdom then ... meh. I don't understand what is wrong with philosophy. People learn from it. Philosophy has caused more harm, and killed more people, than any other academic discipline. Stories are an entertainment, just as music is an entertainment, nothing more, nothing less.

That sounds more like politics than philosophy. Isn't philosophy supposed to expand our understanding of the world and its nature (besides science)?

Dean wrote: Dayvenkirq wrote: Dean wrote: Philosophy is a waste of a mind, it is the single most useless invention mankind has ever created, and the nonsense that dribbles from the mouths of pop and rock lyricists are some of the worst example of that. Prog lyrics are often poor poetry and even poorer philosophy even when compared to the inane banality of Hit Me baby One More Time. Why should I think that the probably drunken and possibly drug-addled musings of a singer in a rock band should carry any meaningful message or insight into the human condition. If the words tell a story then great, if they attempt to impart wisdom then ... meh. I don't understand what is wrong with philosophy. People learn from it. In the entire history of mankind we have never, ever, learnt anything from the navel-gazing pasttime known as "Philosophy", just as we have never, ever, ever, learnt anything from history or even from a story. We will repeat the same mistakes regardless of how much we know it is destined to failure because we are an arrogant species who denies its past mistakes. Philosophy has caused more harm, and killed more people, than any other academic discipline. Stories are an entertainment, just as music is an entertainment, nothing more, nothing less.

They can be very important.  I became an environmental scientist because, when I was in college, I was really touched by Jon Anderson's lyrics and philosophy.  A key moment for me was TFTO, especially the line "...let them rape the forests."  

Dean wrote: Philosophy is a waste of a mind, it is the single most useless invention mankind has ever created, and the nonsense that dribbles from the mouths of pop and rock lyricists are some of the worst example of that. Prog lyrics are often poor poetry and even poorer philosophy even when compared to the inane banality of Hit Me baby One More Time. Why should I think that the probably drunken and possibly drug-addled musings of a singer in a rock band should carry any meaningful message or insight into the human condition. If the words tell a story then great, if they attempt to impart wisdom then ... meh.

This. 

Dean wrote: Philosophy is a waste of a mind, it is the single most useless invention mankind has ever created, and the nonsense that dribbles from the mouths of pop and rock lyricists are some of the worst example of that. Prog lyrics are often poor poetry and even poorer philosophy even when compared to the inane banality of Hit Me baby One More Time. Why should I think that the probably drunken and possibly drug-addled musings of a singer in a rock band should carry any meaningful message or insight into the human condition. If the words tell a story then great, if they attempt to impart wisdom then ... meh.

I don't understand what is wrong with philosophy. People learn from it.

Aussie-Byrd-Brother wrote: Guess what, Dean, I was one of those people that pored over those details too! I've got a massive framed poster of the `Six' album cover, and I remember when I was younger I used to stare at that thing all the time, along with my vinyl copy! Guilty....and loved every bit of it!

Should I ever decide to write another album review (unlikely), it would be of a Mansun album (which one is hard to chose), however since I put so much into their PA biography and the few reviews they have here being so good, I'm not sure what I could add that isn't repetition of what's already been written. More people should listen to Mansun.

Any form of art is made to vehiculate messages, conscious or not. I'm used to look at track titles when listening to instrumental music because even without a real concept an instrumental contains emotions and states of mind. 

Aussie-Byrd-Brother wrote: Completely off topic, but damn, Dean, what a band Mansun were....I've still got a Mansun t-shirt somewhere, but I hardly ever wore it because people that didn't know them assumed that good looking bunch of young lads were a poppy boy group like Nsync etc lol! Anyway, thanks for throwing in such a random Mansun plug, and....

It wasn't random. Mansun were reknowned as being the "bedsit-philosophy" band of the 90s and the darlings of the student philosopher, just like Yes and Genesis were in the 70s and Marillion in the 80s. Fans would pour over the lyrics, analysing the words for meaning. Realising this would happen with the songs on the Attack Of The Grey Lantern album, Paul Drapper penned An Open Letter To A Lyrical Trainspotter as a hidden coda track to close the album, but to no avail, the bed-sit philosophers still picked over the lyrics. Which of course leads directly on to their Prog-Opus: Six, where they made a deliberate effort to show all the songs references in the cover art, including showing all the literature that inspired them in the book titles on the desk and the images in the background.

Gabriel era Genesis' lyrics got me when I was a minor kid.
Also some verses by King Crimson.